


To Feel The Sun

by thesubparpirate



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Auror Harry Potter, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Father Draco Malfoy, Fluff, M/M, but it's not really a big part of the plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-12
Updated: 2017-04-12
Packaged: 2018-10-17 21:29:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10602615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesubparpirate/pseuds/thesubparpirate
Summary: Scorpius and Harry play at the beach while Draco watches and reminisces about how they all got there.A one-shot that I might expand on later, if I have time.





	

It was one of those rare hot days in England, where the heat felt like a living being, brightening the earth and making it live again after the long, cold winter. Draco was acutely aware of the sun on his skin. He hated wearing white—it tended to wash him out—so instead he wore light blue, a tank top, which may not have been the wisest choice. His fingers twitched with the urge to put another layer of sunscreen on: protective charms dried out his skin and hair so much, he preferred tolerate the need to reapply and the slightly greasy feel of the sun lotion.  And Harry, of course, was always happy to help him, not that he ever used any himself, the bastard.

Draco hoped that someday, one day, Harry would get sun sickness—mild, of course—purely out of spite. He hated the gritty, nauseous, headachy feeling of it, lying in bed while the room spun around him awash in over-bright white imprints from the sunlight on his eyes. It happened enough that now they had a stock of potions for just those situations when on vacation, though Draco tended to mope about in darkened rooms for a day or two afterwards, feeling drained. Alas, though, the sun only seemed to invigorate Harry, whose boundless enthusiasm was never tempered by Draco’s cantankerous attitude. He would just bring him whatever food or drink he demanded within his dark little sanctuary, kiss him on the cheek or on the lips or on the forehead, and continue about his wonderful, relaxing day at the beach without him.

And so Draco had developed a leery relationship with the sun over the years, craving it as most drizzly Londoners did but taking care to stay to the shade when it did show itself. It translated to his care of Scorpius, slathering him in sun cream and making sure that he always covered the delicate skin on his scalp with a hat, preferably a wide-brim one. Draco thought he looked cute, even if Potter said he looked ridiculous. What did he know? He’d never felt a sunburn in his life. And Draco wasn’t going to stand a night of Scorpius crying to sooth Potter’s doubtful fashion sense.

He watched the two of them now, playing on the beach together, splashing in the waves. Draco was lounging in the sand under an umbrella, book open but unread in front of him. He watched Harry take the little boy’s hat off and tie it around the back of his own neck so it wouldn’t get blown away in the wind, watched him wade into the waves with him and pick him up, spinning him around before tossing him gently back into the sea, laughing all the while.

“Again!” Scorpius shrieked gleefully when his blonde head popped out of the water, hair plastered to his face, reaching for Harry’s arms. “Again!”

Draco watched with a fond smile. Really, that little boy had been the best thing for him. For both of them.

He had gotten married few years after the trials ended. Draco had been working in a quiet lab, with a professor who hadn’t lived in the bedlam of Britain during the wars. His parents had wanted to prop up their social standing once more, though his was mostly driven by Narcissa, as Lucius was still in Azkaban, a blow they had both dealt with in different ways. Draco had become less and less social, tried and tired of receiving abuse from most everyone he met, while his mother became stalwartly and stoically more so, trying hard to get back in touch with her estranged sister and many of the families who hadn’t outwardly supported Voldemort in the war. It was she who suggested he marry Astoria.

He had never told her of his proclivities, though he always suspected she knew. Astoria was in a similar unfortunate predicament, and it seemed only fitting to marry with every intention of getting divorced and then produce a plump, blonde little pureblood heir for both families to fawn over.

Astoria had been a bit more of a wild card than Draco ever dared to be. She would begrudgingly do her duty to her family, but after she’d bore that yoke, she wanted to live her own life. Draco could hardly say he blamed her, and even wanted to, himself, though he could admit privately that he would never muster up the courage to do so. From what he’d heard from her letters, Astoria was travelling all over Asia at the moment, alongside an American girlfriend she’d met in Thailand. She checked in every now and again to see how he and Scoprius were doing—they were still the best of friends, though their divorce had been splashed all throughout that rag _The Prohpet_ , and she did in fact have a role in Scorpius’ life—just a very minimal one. He had been the one who wanted fervently to raise him, to make sure he didn’t make the same mistakes his parents had, though so much responsibility awed and terrified him. She had been well suited for that, and so, full custody of the child had fallen to Draco.

It had been quite a lot, at first. He’d been obsessive, never leaving Scorpius’ side, not even letting Narcissa watch him alone. He had been terrified that someone would hurt his baby out of spite and bitterness for what had happened during the war, and so he tended to stay inside with him, sending only Bitsy, his house elf, to do their shopping.

He’d bought a nice cottage out in the woods, a very secluded little place. He found it relaxing, and he figured it would be better for the baby to be around nature than gas and smog. Though he knew that he had moved out there mainly out of fear, he pushed that knowledge down. He worried that Scorpius wasn’t seeing enough of other people, but that couldn’t be helped. He had him. He saw Astoria and Daphne, Narcissa and Andromeda and even little Teddy sometimes. That was enough. That was all the people Draco trusted, so it had to be enough. It had gotten so bad, his paranoia, that he’d even withdrawn from Pansy, his steadiest friend.

She and Astoria, actually, were the reason he could now bravely venture out into the public without feeling anxiety gnaw at his gut. They had approached Potter, still Auror-extraordinaire in those days, and implored him to make a visit. Draco wasn’t sure what they’d said to him to convince him, but convince him they had.

That first day, Draco had laughed and slammed the door in his face. Told him to go fuck off back to his self-righteous Gryffindors because he wasn’t about to make a fool of Draco today, and why couldn’t he just leave him _alone_?

But he’d kept coming back, and despite all of Draco’s sharp words meant to cut, he didn’t stop.

Their friendship emerged slowly, a delicate, fragile thing. Draco hadn’t trusted him at first, tough Harry had proven himself as maybe the most trustworthy person Draco knew at his trials. He hadn’t seen the inside of his cottage until after three months had passed, and even longer until Draco let him meet Scorpius.

Harry had marveled at him. “So is albinism a dominant trait in your family, then?” he asked, peering at the toddler held tightly in Draco’s arms. Scorpius peered back at him, equally enchanted, and reached one small hand out towards his eyes. Draco supposed he’d never met anyone with green eyes or glasses before.

“We aren’t albinos,” Draco sniffed. “My fourth-great grandfather was cursed in the sixteenth century. Though I believe before that we were quite fair anyway.”

“Ah,” Harry said, a funny smile twisting his lips. “That makes so much more sense, then.”

“Quite,” Draco agreed, disregarding the sarcasm in Harry’s voice.

When Harry kissed him, weeks later, it was tentative and gentle—two things he’d hardly thought the man capable of. But he’d kissed him back, nonetheless—perhaps even more charmed because of it.

Their mutual affection was even more fragile than their friendship. Draco knew he’d mostly been a detriment in its growth, and yet Harry stayed. Despite all of Draco’s sharp angles and broken parts, he stayed. And Harry had problems of his own, Draco knew—he’d been woken up many a time by Harry’s nightmares, though he protested that he got them much less than before now that he was sharing a bed, sprinkled with soft remarks that made Draco uncomfortable. But Harry, unlike Draco, could actually live in the world: and so their task became.

Convincing Draco to rejoin the world of the living was a difficult task for the two of them. Draco had gotten so used to spending all of his time with Scorpius, the outside world seemed like a distant, frightful memory. The first time they’d went out together, just to the small town near his cottage, he’d clutched Harry’s hand so hard that he could almost feel bones shifting. Harry didn’t pull back, however—he just kept their fingers laced together, placing a soothing, guiding hand on the small of his back when Draco got particularly tense. The whole time, Draco couldn’t stop worrying about Scorpius.

“But does she know his favorite food if he gets hungry?” he kept asking. “It’s the apple sauce with the cinnamon, will she know where to find it?”

“You labeled it for her, Draco, I’m positive she can find it.”

“Yes, well, she’s spent the last three months in Bhutan eating all sorts of strange things. What if she forgets to burp him afterwards? What if he falls asleep and has a nightmare? She doesn’t know which is his favorite plushie, it’s the little blue dog with the tattered ear he always chews on, I keep telling him to stop.”

“I’m sure he’ll be fine, Draco.”

“I don’t know,” he said, biting his lip worriedly. Harry could feel his knee bouncing up and down. “I should go back. We should go back.”

“She’s his mother, Draco. Let them have some time together.”

It had taken a lot of time and effort, but eventually Draco could leave the house and walk around the town with Harry without feeling like he needed to crawl out of his skin. They even took out Scorpius on occasion, in a stroller swathed in blankets and plush toys.  Some of the townsfolk would stop and coo at him, and though Harry could see Draco stiffen and scrutinize them, hackles up and expression guarded, he eventually became used to having people around the two of them. London had been a much different, more difficult story, however.

They found no trouble in Muggle London, and so Harry had made sure to stay away from the crowded tourist areas and bring Draco to quieter places first. The blonde had remarked on this with sarcasm and a cavalier attitude that he did not feel, though he’d rather die than admit it.

Once it had gotten out to the press that Harry had been spending time with Draco, headlines of their possible dalliance splashed the papers. This was shortly after their first few forays to Diagon Alley. Most people left them alone, warded away ether from Draco’s withering glares or from Harry’s crackling magical aura—everyone knew it took quite a powerful wizard to take down the greatest Dark Wizard in centuries. Most, that is, was unfortunately not all.

They were attacked one day in early spring. It was just him and Harry that day, as he still had not mustered the courage to bring Scorpius to wizarding London, and for that he was enormously grateful. The old witch—who, he learned afterwards, believed that Draco had Harry under some sort of nefarious love potion—struck from the shadows of the close beside the road. Draco hadn’t seen it coming, and though he had fast reflexes from his Seeker days, those were long past him, and he hadn’t played Quidditch in years. Harry, in contrast, had learned to act on impulse from his career as an Auror, and his upbringing in the Dursleys household prompted him often in a crisis react without magic, as he did now.

He threw himself in front of Draco, shielding him and allowing himself to be hit. It came about after the fact that he had actually been the intended target, but the old witch had arthritic knuckles and shaky eyes, and so her aim had been a bit off. 

It was a scouring spell, an extremely unpleasant thing which caused one’s muscles to seize and one's stomach to empty, trying to eradicate any impurities the victim may have ingested. It had been outdated and discarded for gentler spells and potions, though it was just as effective.

The unfortunate feeling that Harry’s insides were on fire told him exactly why. Though it only lasted about five seconds—and the vomiting only another ten—Draco had gone white as a sheet, clinging to his arm, pushing his hair back from his face, holding him tightly though he himself was shaking like a leaf and far too quiet. They had a strong shield spell around them, one Draco had put up himself.

Draco insisted that Harry go to St. Mungo’s. Harry insisted he was fine, but allowed himself to be bullied into it if it meant they got to get away from the growing crowd. Draco stayed directly by his side until Harry got called into the examination room, after which Draco was relegated to the waiting room to fidget and read two-year-old Quidditch magazines about the Harpies’ world tour while trying to ignore everyone around him. Harry had been in and out in record time, which was only suitable for the Boy Who Lived.

It was only once they were back at the flat Harry had rented for them that Draco broke down. He had locked himself in their bedroom, away from Scorpius, who was happily watching the telly under Bitsy’s care. He had locked himself away from Harry, as well, too proud to show him the watery, needy, vulnerable parts of him. But Harry had talked to him through the door, and then, somehow, once Draco’s panic attack had really hit him, was there with his arms around him, pulling him into his lap, stroking his hair and kissing the top of his head. _Stupid bastard picked the lock_ , Draco managed to think for a moment through the torrent of dark thoughts and the overwhelming redness of panic. Slowly, Harry brought him back down.

“Stupid,” Draco muttered once he had calmed down enough to come back to himself, rubbing his eyes rather roughly. “Sorry. ’s Stupid.”

He shuffled over, moving to make space, but Harry’s arms tightened around him just a bit, enough to tell him he wanted him there but not enough to restrain him if Draco really wanted to be free of him. Harry pressed his lips to the top of his head. “It’s not,” he said softly. “Don’t act like it is. It’s not stupid.”

Draco scoffed. “You’re the one who got fucking hexed and yet _I’m_ the one sobbing,” he protested.

Harry kissed the side of his face. “It’s more than that,” he said. “I know you know that. It’s alright to feel things, Draco.”

“Shove off,” he _tsked_ gruffly, hesitating a moment in Harry’s grasp before pushing his way out of it. “I’m fine,” he said, though they both knew he wasn’t. He squeezed Harry’s shoulder lightly on the way out, as he left him sitting barren on the floor, alone. Harry took it for what it was—Draco appreciated his comfort but he just didn’t want to confront the ugly feelings that had made such comfort necessary in the first place.

That was still something they were working on.

It was still difficult for Draco, often, to go to wizarding London. He had never, ever brought Scorpius there, and was doubtful he would any time soon. He didn’t mind it overmuch, though: Scorpius was having a good life in the small town where they lived, and it would be many years until he received his letter to Hogwarts. Until then he would have his preschools and his tutors, maybe even some muggle schooling if he and Harry could ever figure that out without yelling.

He watched the two of them laugh and splash together, Harry spinning the little boy around and splashing him lightly, lifting him up and onto his shoulders and parading him around. They both had wide, bright grins on their faces. Despite his parentage, Scorpius looked strikingly similar to Harry like that—the same open, exuberant expressions, ready and excited for the world. Draco smiled. He hoped, as Scorpius grew, that he would stay like that: he didn’t want his son to know the anger and anxiety that marred his own childhood. He’d learned from his father—he’d spoil his son with love, not with things, shiny trinkets or the latest broomsticks. And he would always be proud of him. They would fight, almost definitely, but he would make sure Scorpius always understood why and they would always make up. He’d leave nothing to fester in silence the way it had when he grew up.

“Daddy!” Scorpius threw his shivering, wet body at Draco, who had been lost in thought. Draco hugged him back, patting his damp hair and wrapping a towel around him, breathing in the smell of salt which clung to him.

Harry, not far behind, walked to them. He bent down, sitting in the sand beside Draco and leaning in to kiss him, eyes bright like the ocean behind him. He tasted of seawater, his hair dripping all over Draco’s shoulders.

He toweled himself off and lay back in the sun, tugging Draco down with him.

“Ugh, you’re still so wet,” he protested, though Harry knew it was halfhearted, and his only response was to smile.

“You don’t mind,” he said.

“So arrogant,” Draco muttered, but rested his head on his chest regardless, Harry’s arm wrapped around his shoulders. He watched Scorpius, hat back on his head, determinedly dig a hole to nowhere a few feet over while his fingers stroked Harry’s side idly.

“You’re beautiful,” Harry said abruptly, in that way he had with compliments that always surprised Draco.

“I know,” Draco replied, a smile twisting his lips as he kissed him. “You’re ridiculous.”

Harry laughed, with his whole body, the way Draco loved.

He was happy.

 _They_ were happy.

Despite everything in their way, they were. And even though it wasn’t perfect, it was as close as Draco had ever felt.


End file.
